Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: EC investigating price announcements of container liner shipping companies, (Nov 22, 2013)

By Jeffrey May, J.D.

The European Commission (EC) confirmed today that it has opened formal antitrust proceedings against several container liner shipping companies over their practice of making public announcements of price increase intentions through press releases and the trade press. The revelation of the formal investigation comes more than two years after the EC disclosed that it had conducted unannounced inspections of the offices of container liner shipping companies in EC member states in May 2011.

Although the EC has not disclosed the companies under investigation, A.P. Møller—Maersk A/S, one of the largest players in the industry, issued a statement today, saying that it had been informed that it was part of the probe. The company, based in Demark, said that it “has no reason to believe that Maersk Line has behaved in a manner not in accordance with EU competition law.” However, it noted that it had cooperated and would continue to cooperate with the EC.

The EC is looking into whether the shipping companies are signaling future price increases to the detriment of customers for container liner shipping transport services on routes to and from Europe. According to the EC, the possibly collusive conduct has been going on since at least 2009.

Container liner shipping is the transport of containers by ship at a fixed time schedule on a specific route between a range of ports at one end (e.g. Shanghai - Hong Kong - Singapore) and another range of ports at the other end (e.g., Rotterdam - Hamburg - Southampton), the EC explained.

Companies: A.P. Møller—Maersk A/S

News: Antitrust